The Robber Bride (2)

1
The Robber Bride (2)
Lived City (4) Love and Desire on Cities
Margins -- or Center?

• Identity, Love
• and Surviving Obsession

2
Outline

• Roz and Mitch Questions about choices at
  different moments of a love relationship
• Rozs sense of identity
• Roz and Zenia
• Development of womens magazines
  (WiseWomanWorld).
• Survival How Roz survives her trauma and her
  obsession by Zenia
• Atwoods Style and Language
• The Robber Bride as a whole

3
Starting Questions Roz and Mitch

• What if you were Roz . . .
• Whats Roz like in her 20s?
• Working hard from the bottom and learning a lot
  from her father
• Some sexual experience, but no lovers feels
  old
• What kind of love does Mitch offers?
• Would you accept Mitchs love?
• Why does she accept the proposal?

4
Mitchs Pursuit of Roz

• Starts out as a conservative guy, with flowers
  and in serious tone p. 348.
• Difference in appearance Mitch too good-looking,
  Roz, feels heavy and wants to be a blonde, size
  6, etc. p. 348
• Class difference Roz flatters his ego
• Roz anxiously waiting for his move p. 350-51
• Mitch tantalizing, delaying gratification. p.
  351 52.? sex-role stereotyping

5
Starting Questions (1) Roz and Mitch

• What if you were Roz . . .
• Would you allow Mitch to come back from his
  sexual astrays? Would you treat your marriage
  as a poken game (e.g. 338 424)
• Why does Roz take him back into her arms in the
  past? And after Zenia leaves Mitch? (pp. 423
  thirsty 427) And why not at the last time (p.
  428)

6
Roz identity a Catholic and a mother at heart

• Cannot leave Mitch because p. 398
• cares about her children,
• cannot stand the idea of divorce
• cannot admit that shes made mistake
• still loves Mitch because he is what she is
  not.

7
Roz identity a DP, a pastiche with a disloyal
father.

• Rozs sense of deficiency 344-45
• Roz used to treat her father as a hero (360),
  and, like the others, discriminate against
  displaced persons (365-66)
• Finds out that her father is DP (374) ? Rozs
  life cut in two.
• Roz takes on a Jewish identity. Roz as a hybrid
  (387-90).
• Chap 44 the Fathers mistresses (like Mitch?)
  and his getting rich.

8
Starting Questions (2) Roz and Zenia

• What if you were Roz . . .
• Would you be taken in by Zenia?
• Why makes Roz launch her?

9
Zenias identity

• Rozs sense of lack
• The fathers past as a crook ? Jewish histories
• Her identity a pastiche
• Her relationship with the feminist group with
  Mitch and her richness as obstacles pp.
  394-96-98
• Her feeling of being trusted and confided to
  (399-400 411-12)
• Her career problemthe magazine is not making
  money

• Zenias story
• pp. 404 -406 (Zenia war baby and a mixture,
  definition of Jews, living out of suitcase)
• Her present abilities and her worldliness

10
The Development of Womens Magazines

• 395- 96 a friend, a friend that combined high
  ideals and hope with the sharing of
  down-and-dirty secrets
• 416 -17
• Gone are the stories of female achievers and
  struggles articles on health care
• Now fashion, sex,
• Note development of feminism also implied on p.
  398 overalls ? business suits

11
Trauma and Survival

• The seriousness of the blow this time?
• Different from the past Mitch lives with Zenia,
  he does not ask Roz to help.
• Slow torture of Mitch in moving his stuffs away
  slowly. Not a clear-cut breakup (or clean
  sweep).
• Rozs attempts to salvage her marriage
• with Harriets help? finds out that theres no
  person born with the name of Zenia a name
  her lies with false documents 420-21 her going
  out with one drug-dealer.)
• p. 421 --holds her fire.
• Going out with other men to make Mitch jealous.

12
Survival 1 Rozs adjustments self-healing

• p. 425Going away
• P. 430 satisfy herself with children? Snap out
  of it, she tells herslef. You are not old. Your
  life is not over.
• Sees a shrink
• Another serious blow when she starts to have
  hope. ? understanding Mitch and blaming herself
  434

13
Her deep sense of failure. (esp. about Larry)

• The present time The one shes failed most is
  Larry. If shed only beenwhat? prettier,
  smarter, sexier even, better somehow or else
  worse, more calculating, more unscrupulous, a
  guerrilla fighterMitch might still be here. Roz
  wonders how long it will take for her kids to
  forgive her. . . (93).

14
Survival 2 increasing knowledge (the present)

• Rozs awareness of the nature of her jealousy p.
  326
• Can reject Mitch p. 345 p. 82 Screw you,
  Mitch. If it werent for him, she could relax,
  . . . be middle-aged.
• 352 (her roles stereotyped)
• 399 understands her pridetwo kinds
• 416 Mitchs touching her at the parties with
  Zenia around Steadying himself.
• 428 Hes begging

15
Survival 2 Rozs increasing knowledge (the
present) What does Mitch wants?

• We dont know. We only know it through Roz.
• P. 419 Zenia a vacancy? stray dog syndrome
• P. 428-29 Zenia -- inflating his ego and then
  deflating it.
• Chap 49 still a mother with conventional
  wishes still lonely (eating alone) and caring
  (about Tony and Charis)
• a cynical view
• Zenias of the world//the prevalence of male
  fantasies. 441-42
• Between extremes, she keeps her good will.

16
Survival 3 Emotional Support

• Friends Tony and Charis p. 436-37
• offers support in their different ways
• Charis massage, health foods, philosophy of
  reincarnation
• Tony chocolate, casserole
• Roz appreciates and shows her differences from
  them
• Family members twins p. 443
• Playful not very tender (use a dishtowel)
• Learns from her to laugh away worries and burden

17
Rozs Survival

• Zenia
• You should give me a medal for getting him off
  your back . . . You babied him. 494-95
• blackmail her with lies about Larry He is
  dealing . . . Hes been sampling the product
  pretty heavily too. (496)
• Roz upon knowing that Larry is gay
• Can handle it if she bit her tongue hard
  enough
• Her own marriage not a good example of
  heterosexuality
• Tomorrow shell be genuinely warm and accepting.
  For tonight, hypocrisy will have to do
  (511-12).

18
Note Atwoods Style and Language

• Style intertextual, multiple plot, microcosm
  matched with a macrocosmic view.
• Language humorous (p. 349 ), metaphoric (p.
  414) and witty use of puns (351).

• p. 414 (sound//sense)
• 351 Rape ??

19
p. 349 her mother with a bad taste Doily
everywhere

• Rozs mother had a hard life -- running a
  rooming house, which she inherited from her
  mother (who was widowed when Rozs mother was 2).
  
• After her husband comes back, she withdraws her
  influences on Roz and tends say, Ask your
  father(374-75)
• Look at my hands.
• Stricken look and bad taste
• p. 349

20
Her-Stories in the Context of the City
His-Stories

• in The Robber Bride

21
History Her-Stories
Zenia
U.S. versus Canada
Toronto

Rozs -- Oct23, 1990 and her past (WWII,
post-sixties commercialization)
Tonys
Chariss

• Their Differences
• Zenia her death
• Views on each other
• Position in the City

22
Examples of the Threes Differences

• The Three Characters View of Zenia
• For Tony, Zenia is a white Russian orphan 'a
  lurking enemy commando.'
• For Roz, Zenia is a Berlin Jew 'a cold and
  treacherous bitch.'
• For Charis, Zenia is a Romanian gypsy a kind of
  zombie, maybe 'soulless.'"
• Their views of her first death
• Tony thinks that Zenia is inoperational
  Charis feels peaceful
• Roz feels kaput(broken) wants to take a dog
  to pee there

23
Rozs Views of the two friends in chap 49

• Charis easy target for robbers a long-haired,
  middle-aged woman walking around covered with
  layers of printed textiles and bumping into
  things, she might as well has a sign pinned on
  er, Snatch my purse. (440)
• Tony tiny, with her baby-bird eyes and her
  acidulated (sour) little smile the sex appeal of
  a fire hydrant.(441)

24
After Zenia re-appears Tony and Charis in Rozs
Eyes

• Tony is so little, Charis is so thin, both are
  shaken. She feels as if shes hugging the twins,
  one and then the other, on the morning of their
  first day at school. She wants to spread her hen
  wings over them, reassure them, tell them that
  everything will be all right. . .Both smarter
  than she is. . .But neither one of them has any
  street smarts (115).

25
After Zenia re-appears Charis and Roz in Tonys
Eyes

• Charis is shivering, despite her attempt at
  serenity
• Roz is flippant and dismissive, but shes holding
  back tears.

26
Chariss View of Her Friends and Zenias
Reappearance

• Goes to Tony for rational solution Goes to Roz
  for hug (69) Tony reminds her of snowflakes
  Roz with golden, many-colored and spicy aura
  (69-70)
• Compassion for all living things, . . .Zenia is
  alive, so that means compassion for Zenia (79).

27
The Threes Positions in Toronto

• Tony
• at school surrounded by male colleagues.
• Likes the mix of skins on the street but when
  she walks on the sidewalk, she keeps away from
  the ragged figures who lean against the wall
  (28)
• her marching on the street as if on war fields.
  
• Charis'
• sees the city from afar pp.47 57-58
• works in a store owned by one with mixed blood
  cannot understand the racism the latter
  experiences.

28
The Threes Positions in Toronto (2)

• Roz The rooming house is now taken by the
  Chinese
• --Now she has an overview of the city,
  drives most of the time has a bathroom some
  South-Asians could live in
• Has a Filipino maid.

29
Canada in the context of Worldwide changes and
American Imperialism

• The Soviet bloc is crumbling, old maps are
  dissolving . . . (p. 4)
• Persian Gulf War Tony Dont think of it as a
  war, think of it as market expansion. . . .
  Canadas attendance will be required. If you
  take the kings shilling, you kiss the kings
  ass (33).

30
History and Her-Stories

• His-Stories
• the political histories of nations fighting
  against each other
• Fairy tales
• Atwood Where have all the Lady Macbeths gone? 
  Gone to Ophelias, every one, leaving the devilish
  tour-de-force parts to be played by
  bass-baritones. ? Stereotypes of women in
  traditional culture
• Her-Stories History is a construct.
• of a villainess using men to victimize women
• Mixing the domestic with the political
• Telling Story together to survive.